Day: May 29, 2021

A common argument against the existence of God is to use an analogy with imaginary things such as unicorns. It is said that because unicorns are a product of human imagination then God must be too. The reasoning goes that because unicorns have never been seen, they do not exist and so the same must be true for God. But this is a poor analogy and it is important to understand why before dismissing the concept of God altogether as a fantasy.

Narwhal tusks and Marco Polo

First let us consider the origin of the unicorn. One theory for the imaginative invention of the Unicorn is that Narwhale tusks were the model for the type of horn we see on European representations of unicorns as in the photo above. These unicorns look like an antelope or a horse with the narwhale horn coming out of the middle of its forehead…

Nobody knows what gravity is, and almost nobody knows that nobody knows what gravity is. The exception is scientists. They know that nobody knows what gravity is, because they don’t know what gravity is. – Richard Panek

Yesterday, I wrote a post, A Tale of Two Brains, where I mentioned that scientists don’t know what gravity is. I thought I should add a separate note about it because most people are unaware how much mystery there is in the subject and I thought I should provide a reference to back up that shocking admission of scientific failure.

Richard Panek has written an interesting book on the history of our study of gravity. He also writes about the how most people do not know that science is not as certain about its understanding of how the universe as we think.